Charlotte Haab is an Account Manager for 3Q Digital, in the Burlington, Vermont office. After graduating from Emerson College in Boston in 2014, Charlotte started her career at 3Q Digital, and has been working in the digital marketing field ever since. She enjoys reading by the lake, skiing, reality TV, and her Bernese mountain dog, Riggins.
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Lead at
3Q Digital.
Voice and visual search methods are quickly becoming more mainstream. There’s our Amazon ambassador Alexa, of course, our old pal Siri, the lesser-known Cortana—we even have voice assistance available in our refrigerators these days. Search marketers are starting to notice an influx in queries starting with “hey google”—but how do we address these in our strategy?
Then there’s visual search, a lesser explored but potentially very powerful eCommerce tool. Major advertisers like Pinterest and retail giants like Target are increasingly starting to embrace visual capabilities.
Here’s what you can do right now to start preparing for increased voice and visual searches.
When people are conducting voice searches, it’s often in the form of longer tail detailed questions. These types of queries are important because they represent a very strong and very specific intent. While there’s no way to optimize ads to this yet, you can better your chances of serving an organic result by optimizing your SEO.
Make sure you have plenty of conversational content on your site. For example, if you’re a retailer, your pages should include phrases like, “where you can buy xyz…” or “to buy xyz near you.” This will make you more likely to get picked organically as the answer or first result to one of these questions, bolstering your brand and likely increasing traffic.
No voice ads are currently being served. However, advertisers are starting to notice voice commands in their normal search queries.
Note that many of these are long tail. Voice queries on average are at least 5-6 keywords. Voice queries are also typically very local—usually asking for nearby locations or directions.
To get ahead of this trend, advertisers can mine their search queries for voice commands and build out campaigns specifically around them. Depending on how they perform and what your goals are, you may want to bid higher or lower on these types of queries—or even exclusively target more local areas.
Another option is to exclude them completely using negatives. Simply negate “hey google” to stop showing here.
Recently, Google made a new schema.org specification available, that if set up correctly on your backend will indicate to various voice assistants if a section of your website is particularly “speakable.”
Having this configured properly in your backend will allow easy text to speech conversion when voice assistants start reading results—making your brand more likely to be chosen as the answer. Again, while this isn’t monetized in any way, it’s valuable for brand recognition and traffic to your site!
Lastly—and this largely applies to the lesser sought after visual search—it’s important for brands to stay ahead of the technology and for advertisers to be where that technology exists. For instance, visual search isn't a bigger deal at the moment because brands need to adopt technology to use it well.
Some brands are ahead of the curve here, like Target or Pinterest. On Pinterest you can simply snap a picture in the search bar and the results will return hundreds of Pins that match your photo. I tested this out with a random tube of lip balm on my desk, and it sent me right to a shoppable Pin!
If you want to show up in visual searches, you’ve got to be where they exist, which right now is largely just Pinterest. Visual search is sure to gain more traction as more companies adopt the advanced technology, but for now, it’s somewhat few and far between.
While the technology for visual search hasn’t been widely adopted yet, and there’s currently no clear way of monetizing voice search, there is speculation on how advertisers like Google and Amazon might achieve this in the future.
The conversational language in voice searches often makes intent super clear—so while the perfect ad may exist, it’s a pretty awful user experience to sit through an audio ad before getting an answer to your question. Experts believe users would likely revolt against such a concept.
As a workaround, it’s been speculated that ads may serve after organic results from voice searches, offering people an option to hear the sponsored content. If they say yes, they’ll read an ad and potentially have the link sent straight to their smartphone to encourage conversion.
The other major roadblock is that people are very unlikely to buy in an eCommerce setting without some sort of visual. The latest products, like Echo Show, and Home Hub—available with screens—have the potential to upend that, by combining voice and visual browsing capabilities to make a sale.
Ultimately, these are all very new technologies that have yet to fully catch on in a major way. While we’re not quite there yet, there’s no doubt in my mind that advertising giants will find a way to monetize voice and visual search.
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Lead at
3Q Digital.
As we get into the meat of Q4, there’s only one thing on advertiser’s minds—sales and how to maximize them. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be the biggest sales days of the year, but it’s possible to extend that momentum and maximize your sales well into the New Year.
If you’re looking to keep sales strong even after the holidays, check out the tips below.
Just how huge were Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year? Black Friday raked in $6.2 billion in sales, while Cyber Monday set yet another record with $7.8 billion. It’s estimated that more than a third of the country—174 million people—hit the internet between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, presumably to shop for gifts.
So once all those people buy, what happens to them? This is where first-party data strategies come into play. All that online spending really fattens up customer lists! Tap your or your client’s CRM software to get lists of shoppers sent to the various search engines.
You can get as granular as your backend setup allows. Popular segments include people who:
The list could go on. You can use these segments to remarket down the line, or even create similar audiences or lookalikes on certain platforms going into the New Year.
For instance, if you’re able to create an audience of people who purchased Kitchen Aid Stand Mixers during a Cyber Monday sale, you can retarget them in the New Year with various attachments—maybe a veggie spiralizer to help them with their New Year’s resolution to eat healthier! Or, if you have a wider array of products for sale, you can create a list of users who had a higher than average order value, and retarget them more aggressively on your most expensive or luxury items.
The New Year is a fresh start for many—why not capitalize on that mentality? In almost every industry there is a New Year’s resolution or related seasonality that applies to your vertical.
For example, for wedding purveyors, New Year’s Eve is a night of proposals—you can count on a spike in sales the next day. Most people resolve to get fit or healthier in the new year, and for retailers this means higher demand for activewear, kitchen, or food-prep supplies. Gyms see a sharp bump in memberships, and even banking institutions see increases in search volume as the population resolves to finally get their finances in order.
Think about which resolutions apply to your business, and be prepared with keyword expansions, increased inventory, or exclusive deals.
Despite being “the most wonderful time of the year,” the holidays and surrounding dates can be among the most stressful for anyone who works in marketing. Make your life a lot easier by embracing dynamic capabilities and automation features that seem to be constantly rolling out.
Ensure total coverage and keyword mine with DSA campaigns.
Being prepared for the New Year may sometimes means a keyword expansion. For example, a retail client who typically sells beach gear wants to expand into activewear in anticipation of increased sales in the New Year.
While you can research and craft your own keyword lists, another great way to ensure coverage is to set up a Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) campaign in Google. Through these campaign types you can target broader categories based on your site structure or product categorization.
Once you set up the campaign you can really sit back and let Google do the keyword harvesting for you. Review queries on your DSA campaigns to find super high quality, longer tail, or unexpected new keywords to bid more aggressively on as the year progresses.
Use dynamic and responsive ad capabilities to target the most relevant customer with the most relevant language.
You can take even more work off your plate by embracing dynamic and responsive ad types in Google. You can use dynamic keyword insertion to make sure your headlines are totally tailored to each and every query that comes through. You can even take some of those first-party data lists and write specialized ad copy just for those people to be dynamically applied in-auction.
For instance, those stand mixer customers might respond well to, “Enjoying your new stand mixer? Check out this new attachment.” Or on Facebook, use the automated audience segments to target newly engaged couples with specific pointed language like, “Just engaged? Check out our wedding planning checklist!”
If you’re willing to surrender even more to Google’s algorithms you can stick some responsive search or responsive display ads into the mix. You can theoretically set and forget these ad types—Google will format them in each auction to serve in the most enticing way possible with the goal of driving clicks or conversions.
Use automated bid strategies tailored to your goals.
Make sure your account is set to “Optimize” for ad rotation to give Google full control over who gets served your ads in auction. Their robust algorithms serve your ads to the most qualified searchers in every auction, maximizing performance and eliminating the need to orchestrate clunky, antiquated A/B tests.
You can also test the waters with various bid strategies to achieve your specific performance goals, whether that’s a target ROAS, target CPA, certain impression share, or certain competitor you want to outrank.
Google is also constantly refining these bid strategies, so if you’ve tried them in the past to no avail, don’t be afraid to test them again! I would also encourage advertisers to stay up to date on new betas across all platforms.
For instance, this time of year can be difficult or slow for B2B companies—but implementing Google’s new pay-per-conversion beta allowed for one B2B client to finally find success through GDN acquisition and only pay for efficient conversions. The best part? The targeting is 100% in Google’s hands—barely any work for a very strong yield. Be sure to ask your account reps across all channels for updates on the latest and greatest performance tools/opportunities.
This year has marked a shift in how Americans shop. For the first time, more than 50% of Americans say they prefer to shop online. It’s also no big secret that the industry in general is consistently moving in the direction of eCommerce over in-store shopping. Each year on Black Friday foot traffic falls by a few percentage points while online sales soar.
It’s important to note that brick and mortar stores are evolving into a valuable supplement to the ever-growing digital landscape. No matter how easy it is to shop online, humans love instant gratification. That’s why e-tailers and retailers alike are developing symbiotic relationships.
For example, this year Amazon partnered with Kohl’s to serve as a center for processing returns. Numerous big box and department stores are adapting a similar strategy by offering in-store or next-day pickup. This has the benefit of encouraging the online sale while also luring foot traffic to physical stores. In fact, this year in-store pickup on Black Friday increased nearly 75% from just one day before, that Thursday.
You can keep up with these trends digitally and still help your store business by taking advantage of some of the in-store-geared tools cropping up across online advertising platforms. For starters in Google, if your company meets certain requirements, you can set up tracking to measure store visits attributed to your digital efforts. This can help you best inform where/how to spend digitally to best support your in-store business. You can do something similar through Facebook by using their offline conversion API integration.
In addition to all of this, you can set up Google My Business and link to Google Merchant Center to prominently display in-store pickup where it’s available in your Google Shopping listings.
A note about in-store returns
Offering in-store returns after the holiday season is a great way to lure in customers. While it may be easier to buy online, returns are a pain, and customers are more likely to return in-store if it’s a possibility. Once they’re in your physical store, they’re more likely to buy something else or make an exchange rather than a full return.
Furthermore, when completing a transaction of any sort in the store, ask for an email address. Take email addresses captured from your POS system to retarget (or exclude) on digital platforms. Capitalize on the post-Christmas rush and get people through your doors!
In sum: Brick and mortar isn’t dying—it’s just evolving.
In short, the best way to extend your holiday momentum into the New Year is by taking the tips above, and thinking outside of the box to effectively use the massive influx of data from the cyber holidays to your advantage. Fuel your customer lists and get creative with seasonal targeting segmentation. Hit your customers with pointed ad copy and achieve success on a more granular level by embracing the new dynamic and automated tools available to us.
Lastly—while trending down—don’t discount your brick and mortar stores just yet! Take what they still have to offer and use them to your advantage. Work these tips into your strategy to keep your sales as strong as possible as 2019 approaches.
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Lead at
3Q Digital.
A few months back I gave you the scoop on Google’s latest ad type: responsive search ads. How have these ads been performing since their release?
Responsive ads essentially mix and match from a variety of pre-written ad assets. In other words, you can write up to 15 headline variations and four description variations, and Google will determine which combinations are most relevant to each individual auction. It’s also worth noting that each ad can show up to three headlines in the SERP, with extended 90-character descriptions.
At this early stage, the consensus is mixed. Google’s research shows that advertisers can get up to 15% more clicks or conversions by adding a responsive search ad to their ad groups.
Our own research shows that some clients saw nice improvements to click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR) using RSAs, while others didn’t.
Why was this the case?
For one eCommerce client, the challenge was expanding branded keyword efforts when we were already at 100% impression share. With responsive search ads, we were able to grab about 10% more impressions that we weren’t getting previously.
One thing to keep in mind, in this instance, is that RSAs had just been released. A few weeks after their release, Google announced updates to standard ads that included three headlines, and two 90-character descriptions. This inherently puts less tailored RSAs at a disadvantage when comparing.
For this same retailer it’s also worth noting we saw a nearly 15% increase in CTR and a 12% increase in CVR. That’s because RSAs give Google the freedom to use their algorithms to decide which combination of copy is most likely to drive a conversion for each individual auction. The more conversion volume your account has, the better Google can learn what works for who. As a trade off, there’s a limitation to how query-specific your ads can be.
If your account has ample conversion volume and uses largely generic or branded copy—you can probably expect some improvements to performance and impression share from implementing RSAs.
In a contrary example, another similarly sized eCommerce retail client implemented RSAs and saw the opposite happen. CTR dropped by about 15%. While this account had similar levels of traffic, they sold a more specialized product and had a longer time to conversion, thus smaller amounts of volume—in which case the query-specific headline structure in standard ETAs were able to outperform Google’s RSAs.
Another client who couldn’t find success with RSAs cited overall low volume. The new ad type just didn’t get enough traction and barely served—making any learnings or results negligible. In the same way the new SERP inventory was beneficial for our first example, it ended up being detrimental for our last example.
If you have very limited volume, and your copy hinges on very stringent customization, or brand restrictions, RSAs might not be for you.
While adopting RSAs early gave some advertisers access to additional inventory volume, now that standard ads have been updated to match, all text ads are now serving in the same auction—so increased impression share is no longer a benefit you should expect.
In sum: RSAs are still pretty new. Google continues to encourage automation/machine learning strategies, and will likely continue to do so. In the meantime, it’s always good to try something new to see if it works for you! So if you haven’t implemented RSAs yet, I suggest you do— but monitor them closely until you know how they perform for your accounts.
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Manager at
3Q Digital.
Whether it’s ominous video spots, sneaky “fake news,” or your favorite great aunt’s not-quite-sensitive Facebook comments,
TV and online airwaves, channels, and networks are full of political messaging.
Advertisers are in the thick of it. They can shape public opinion, but most people don’t understand how—the psychology, emotions, and branding that contribute to trying to sway public opinion. To this end, the political space sees a lot of money and content that goes into advertising. What are things looking like just a couple of weeks before the big day?
The answer to this one is pretty simple: everyone— Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives alike. However, advertising trends between parties are pretty different and some even surprising!
This year, pro-Democratic candidates and PACs have outspent Republicans by a cool $30 million on TV ads. They’re spending $260 million in total, and according to eMarketer, competition’s only going to get more heated.
Whether Democrats outspending the GOP gives you hope for the future or leaves a bad taste in your mouth, Democratic Senate candidates are making a mistake spending the bulk (60-70%) of their marketing budgets on TV and direct mail. Where they need to be is digital. Democrats typically spend 10-15% of their marketing budget on digital, while our friends in the GOP spend a whopping 30% to 50%.
In the final weeks of this election cycle, however, House Democrats are finally getting with the times. Younger, more progressive faces of the party like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are making a big midterm push in digital ads. After all, robust digital strategies were integral to helping candidates like her and Ayanna Pressley win the primaries. Priorities USA and Senate Majority PAC—two prominent Democratic organizations—are dropping an additional $21 million in battleground states ahead of November 6th, exclusively in digital channels.
[caption id="attachment_12153" align="alignnone" width="385"]
Example on the left: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez[/caption]
Since people today spend an average of six hours a day looking at the internet and traditional TV as we know it is fading into the past, Senate Democrats would do well to heed the data and move more spend online. Also, TV and radio represent some of the most loosely targeted advertising options available. Which leads to the next question….
Digital. Republicans clearly know this. Since May of this year the Trump campaign has spent nearly a quarter million on Google platforms alone.
The main reason that digital content/channels are so important and so compelling for political organizations really comes down to targeting. Being able to deliver an emotional message doesn’t hurt, either. (To view some examples, Google now houses all political ads in its political ad library, which shows the breadth and depth of messaging in the current landscape.)
[caption id="attachment_12154" align="alignnone" width="500"]
Example on the right: Bryan Steil[/caption]
Digital channels all offer the ability to target by demographic, language, interests, and probably most importantly, location. Hyper local targeting—sometimes down to the coordinate level—layered in with demographic and language targeting gives political advertisers the ability to tailor their ads to every single one of their constituents, with virtually no impression waste if done correctly.
On Facebook you can target people based on their level of college education, gender, ethnicity, generation, and the charities they donate to—all super-important indicators of who and what they might vote for.
With Google and YouTube, you can use topic and affinity targeting to literally pick which social and advocacy issues people are interested in. HIllary Clinton could target her ads toward people who care about reproductive rights, while Trump could target his ads at people with specific stances on immigration policy and border issues.
Meanwhile, Connected TV (CTV) is offering all the visual content of a traditional TV spot, but paired with the detailed targeting available in modern digital channels. I don’t think it’s worth Trump’s money to pay for CTV spot during an episode of The Handmaid's Tale, for example.
So….
To loosely quote Peter Parker’s uncle: with great (digital) power, comes great responsibility. This responsibility isn’t always respected. Political and 3rd party organizations have been getting around some of the rules by allowing bots, foreign powers, or other malfeasance to pump massive amounts of money into incendiary or even false political advertisements. It then becomes the responsibility of the marketing platforms to make sure the public isn’t being misled.
In May, Facebook announced a new slew of regulations for political ads including a mandatory “Paid for by” label, and stricter requirements for advertisers to verify identity and location. These regulations extend not just to electoral ads, but also to any ad containing content related to a highly debated political issue. Facebook is also hard at work in its newly revealed war room, aiming to eliminate election manipulation on its platform.
While these publishers are definitely taking the correct steps, it’s not a problem they can solve overnight. So whether you’re an advertiser yourself or just a fervent user of the internet, remember to try and go deeper than political ads in taking sides this November.
Now get out there and vote!
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Manager at
3Q Digital.
It’s no secret that Google AdWords has been undergoing some big changes lately—most of them pushing users toward automation. Over the past few years, advertisers have noticed many other Google ad types that encourage automation, especially ones on YouTube and the GDN.
Google’s most recent addition aims to accomplish the same thing, but on the search network. Announced at this year’s Google Marketing Live, responsive ads are here for search, and they show promise as the best thing since Expanded Text Ads launched back in 2016. So what are they? How do they work?
Responsive ads allow you to serve more targeted ads by allowing Google to mix and match from a variety of pre-written ad assets. In other words, you can write up to 15 headline variations and four description variations, and Google will determine which combinations are most relevant to each individual auction. It’s also worth noting that each ad can show up to three headlines in the SERP, and they’ve extended descriptions to 90 characters!
If the extra real estate isn’t enough to convince you to try them, Google claims advertisers who implement responsive ads in non-branded ad groups on average have seen a 5-15% uptick in clicks.
It’s definitely scary for some advertisers to surrender control to Google’s algorithms like this, but in the future Google has plans to introduce some new features specifically for responsive ads to increase their customization and flexibility, such as specific asset reporting and “pinning.”
Through asset reporting, users will be able to view which exact headlines or descriptions performed compared to others. From there, users will be able to “pin” their top-performing assets to customize their ads even further. These features haven’t been released yet and there’s no word on when they’ll be available. So keep an eye out in your accounts!
This ad type is still pretty new, but most advertisers should now have access to them through the new AdWords UI. Marin also has beta support for responsive search ads, so be sure to check with your account rep for further info.
So far, Marin has seen increased performance among its customers who’ve tried responsive ads. And, with Google’s major pushes towards automation, it wouldn’t be surprising if these ads catch on!
This is a guest post from Charlotte Haab, Account Manager at
3Q Digital.
Summer’s finally here. For most of our weekends that means one thing—weddings.
Spring through summer is well known as wedding season in the US, and for digital advertisers, the industry can be a lucrative one. But how about for those of us who aren’t peddling save the dates or bridesmaid dresses?
The average wedding has about 100 guests, each tasked with getting a gift to celebrate the new couple. If the average person spends $116 on a wedding gift, that’s a lot of revenue to be had! The question then becomes: How do we tap into those fringe markets—like gifts—during the peak of nuptial season?
Here are seven things to keep in mind to get the most out of your marketing this wedding season.
If you want to capitalize on the summer wedding eCommerce runoff, being on the right channels is key. It’s no lie that weddings are all about aesthetic. As such, having a presence on visual wedding-oriented channels like Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram is extremely important. Seventy-two percent of people getting married start on Pinterest, and 33% connect with brands through Instagram. Those numbers grow each year.
As a new wedding-goer myself I know I’ve turned to Pinterest for gift-giving etiquette. Have fun with it! Create a “gift guide” pin featuring your top giftable products, and use keyword targeting to hit people like me, perusing Pinterest for wedding gift cost guidance or trending items. Or, target users with marriage-aged friends on Instagram with romantic product shots of this season’s latest gifts—bonus if they’re shoppable!
Considering who will be buying wedding gifts is important. You’ll want to apply age targeting segments wherever possible. The average newlywed couple is 25-34, which means their friends are, too, so be sure to target that segment the most aggressively.
Also target ages 45-64 to hit parents and family members of the new couple. The older the demographic the more money they tend to have—making the higher age ranges ideal targeting for bigger ticket items.
Lastly, while it may be archaic, most people actually buying wedding gifts are women. So consider gender-specific targeting to better get at this key group of buyers. Similarly, if you’re selling a bigger ticket item—like appliances or furniture—think about applying some household income targeting to exclude the users who can’t afford your products.
In SEM there are a lot of targeting options that lend themselves perfectly to gifting. You can play around with the best combinations of In-Market or Affinity audiences to expand your reach. Some are even specific to weddings, such as In Market for Gift Baskets or Personalized Gifts, or even an affinity for Luxury Shoppers or Home Decor Enthusiasts.
You could even craft your own custom affinity audience and target people interested in specific topics or domains, like theknot.com, Zola, or just straight up “wedding gifts.” They sky's the limit.
Beyond this, you could also try your hand at some customer list targeting. Create a list based off of users who purchased your gifts around the holidays, and remind them of their pleasant past purchasing experience this time around!
I would also recommend implementing an RLSA keyword strategy. Keywords like “wedding gifts” or “gifts for couples” might get you where you want to be, but they’ll be incredibly competitive and likely carry some pretty high CPCs.
To get around this, create a campaign of those top of funnel keywords you wish you could afford, and slap some audience lists on top of them to narrow their reach to your existing customers! This is another place creative customer lists can come in handy. If someone who purchased with you last year is now looking for a wedding gift, they’ll likely recall your brand, and may even be willing to purchase from you again. The stronger the intent of your customer lists, the higher you should bid up.
Like I said earlier, weddings are all about aesthetic. In order to inspire the right people you need to have proper creative. For events like weddings people respond well to notions of sentimentality. Include language around getting your loved one the “perfect gift.”
When using image creative, it’s important to stay on trend, and tell a story as much as possible. Weddings are about friends and families coming together to celebrate—if you can capture that in your imagery, you'll have a winning ad, like this great Zola example!
If it’s within your means, update your website during wedding season to encourage new users to purchase. I would suggest an on-site “countdown” to wedding season, or even better a dedicated “gift guide” to steer users to your top selling or biggest ticket items. At the very least there should be a clear path from your homepage to the items you consider gifts.
Lastly, if you’re not a home goods or traditional gift retailer, fret not—there is still plenty of the wedding cash cow to go around. If you’re marketing formalwear, hotels, transportation, beauty, or entertainment services, you can still capitalize on all those bells and whistles that come with a wedding.
